HOGS AXD PORK PACKING. 215 



qnart? of molasses for a tierce, the brine being made to sIioav thirty degrees 

 of salt.ness by the meter. 



After the meat has lain sufficient time in the pickle, it is taken ont and 

 packed in bulk for curing, or, -which is better, hung up where it will not freeze, 

 remaining at least four weeks before thoroughly cured through. 



The smoke-house should be built so that no meat shall ever come nearer 

 than ten to twelve feet of the fire, and well ventilated at the top, to keep up a 

 good circulation to prevent the house becoming too hot. The fires are made 

 in a hole or pit in the ground, and the material used (green hickory logs) 

 placed in it and fired somewhat like a coal pit, the wood being kept covered 

 pretty much with ashes. Care is taken that the temperature does not rise 

 above C5^ or 70^. Corn cobs would be more desirable to use for smoking if 

 they could be obtained, as they impart a better flavor to the meat. 



The best weather to smoke meat is when it is clear and pleasant, and the 

 barometer rising. If the temperature out doors is about 50°, it is deemed 

 favorable. With such weather meat will make as much progi'ess in a single 

 day as in several when the weather is damp and foggy. With good weather, 

 and firing day and night, one Aveek's time is deemed sufficient to smoke hams 

 well. 



If the meat is designed for shipment to foreign ports, it is seldom ever 

 smoked, but shipped packed in tierces, with salt, like other barrel meat, and 

 the cask filled with the sweet pickle made as above described. 



THE OFFAL. 



Since the Chicago river has ceased to be the sewer for all the offal from the 

 slaughter and packing-houses, the owners have been obliged to cart it off to 

 the commons and open fields beyond the city limits at a very heavy expense 

 to them. 



An enterprising firm has, however, contracted with all the principal firms 

 the present season to carry it all away by the owners paying half the expenses. 

 Instead, however, of carrying it off and throwing away, they have commenced 

 preparing it for fertilizers. They have provided centrifugal machines, into 

 which they place the refuse from the lard and grease tanks, and throw out all 

 the water, leaving only the solid parts, and that in a pulpy or pulverized con- 

 dition. In this way they will prepare about three thousand tons the present 

 season, all of which Avill be shipped east for the manufacture of commercial 

 manures. 



Another concern is gathering all the bones it can pick up, from which are 

 manufactured large quantities of animal chai'coal, and such as are not suitable 

 for that purpose are ground up and sent east, they having shipped the past 

 season over three hundred tons of ground bones alone. Thus the west is not 

 only feeding the people of the east, but feeding their lands. 



This should not be. Not one pound of this vast quantity of fertilizer should 

 ever be allowed to leave the great prairies, for the time will surely come when 

 it will be needed. 



